[4K] Mega Man 11 Is A Platforming Masterpiece: Every Version Tested!

even 30-plus years after its release classic Megaman still rocks since its first appearance in 1987 the series has left its mark on the industry delighting players and influencing young creators alike but it's a remarkably difficult formula to get right Capcom itself has stumbled at times over the years while certain other projects never really came close which is why when Megaman 11 was quietly announced the tail end of 2017 I was skeptical yet curious does Capcom still have what it takes to create a proper megaman game after all this time well after spending the week playing through the final game I can safely answer that with a resounding yes with sharp level design refined mechanics in a beautiful new visual style Megaman 11 is everything I had hoped for and more but how did Capcom ateva s-- well that's precisely what we're going to examine today what is it that makes a Mega Man game great in the first place how does Megaman 11 excel and improve upon these key elements and what about performance across the various platforms that's been released on any input latency concerns to consider well answer all that and more in this episode [Music] [Music] to fully appreciate Megaman 11 we need to first consider what it is that makes Megaman so special in the first place in how the team has improved upon each element in building this new game firstly there's the stage design Capcom is often to build Megaman 11 with sixteen by nine widescreen in mind opening the play field in the process this isn't the first widescreen Megaman game of course but it is the first to truly utilize the additional screen space this wider canvas has enabled the team to push out the level design and introduce new challenges that may not have worked as well in a smaller space when it comes to crafting these challenges however Megaman 11 wisely channels the classic games Megaman is widely recognized for its approach to teaching through level design right the ideas that challenges are presented to the player in controlled environments you learn through doing basically the designer will naturally introduce a new enemy or hazard early in a stage allowing you to easily recognize and learn how to handle a new threat before combining them together to create more difficult challenges this is a key element in building a great Megaman stage but it's also something that later installments particularly in the X series started to lose with the introduction of things like in-game dialogue boxes by the time we hit those later megaman x titles these dialog boxes started getting in the way of just playing the game combine that with generally less interesting level design it's clear why games like megaman x6 are not held in high regard and it's even worse in games like mighty number 9 this would be spiritual successor to the mega man series falls completely flat in this regard by pausing to explain just about every single hazard the player might encounter it's infuriating sure Mega Man 9 features great level design but it's been 10 years since that games released so it was never a given that Capcom could pull this off again with Megaman 11 yet somehow that's precisely what has happened the stage design in Megaman 11 is brilliant and stands tall next to the best games in the series firstly the game retains the aforementioned show rather than tell approach to level design take blast man stage for instance from the very first screen players learned that fire causes these boxes to explode and disappear been one screen over you learned that these smaller enemies trigger explosions when blasted into those same crates next we're introduced to these trip wires which cause a series of explosions based on the point of origin for the light beam you need to run quickly across the boxes if they explode or simply avoid the explosion altogether so now we know that these boxes explode and we understand what triggers an explosion now that the player understands the basics of the stage then the complexity can be ramped up all the new elements are laid out clearly right from the start of the stage without ever relying on dialog boxes you figure it out by doing and if you fail in the early section you're only punishment is a little damage taken every single stage features its own unique concepts in this sense from the sliding ice and spikes featured in tundra man's stage - these crazy spheres and bounce man's stage all the way to the crazy flame mechanics featured in torch man's level there are also common elements between stages like this again you see this enemy here and this powerup up here you can destroy the enemy and continue or if you observe its attack you might realize that it's also possible to stand on them temporarily to reach a higher point which is something that will come in handy later in the game basically Megaman 11 nails this aspect of design the team clearly understands what makes the series so great and then it takes things further as suggested earlier the developers take full advantage of the expanded field of view an increase in screen real estate with a series of stage layouts and challenges pushing beyond the classic series it's a perfect fusion of modern and classic game design that's not even getting into the quality of the platforming and enemy placement jumps are perfectly designed to feel satisfying but challenging while enemy placement is simply perfect every single block and every inch of the stage is perfectly planned out in aligned the enemies themselves also follow in the footsteps of the classic games each has a clear attack pattern and weak point that keeps the players on their toes you need to learn to counter these patterns to progress through each stage while juggling multiple enemy types you really can't just fumble your way through a stage which is another area we're mighty number nine fall short in comparison enemy attacks and placement matters very little in this game you can just hammer on the attack button and keep holding forward it doesn't really matter if you take damage or fumble your way through the stage it simply never requires much in the way of precision the - chain system is interesting I suppose on paper but it doesn't really work the game just isn't that challenging and without this challenge and the need to learn patterns the gameplay simply becomes dull and wrote after a short while the loop that is so rewarding in Megaman is completely absent and that's exactly where the development team at Capcom has succeeded with this new game beyond that there's no gimmick stages here either by the time Capcom reached Megaman 8 for instance the team introduced things like this boarding segment or what amounts to a horizontal shooter in tangu man's stage you'll find none of this in Megaman 11 which basically moves the series forward while carrying with it that which makes the original game so good more than anything else this is where mighty number 9 really dropped the ball poor level layouts poor signposting and a near constant barrage of dialogue windows basically ruin the experience conversely other games like shovel knight and octahedron understand this classic design and push the genre in new directions these are developers that have learned from the Masters but great level design also requires perfect control the Megaman games rely on sharp responsive easy-to-understand controls designed to allow players to deal with challenges quickly and efficiently at least in the right hands Megaman 11 draws from later games in the classic series then with features such as the slide and charge shot but improves upon the formula with a few smart additions remember rush introduced in Megaman 3 rush is designed to assist Megaman in a variety of ways but using him requires entering the menu selecting rush and then popping back out into the game screen this is how it's always worked and Megaman 11 however rushes now assigned directly to dedicated hot keys which summoned one of two rush forms without ever visiting the menu it's not that it's just more convenient it also allows players to utilize rush in quick reaction scenarios such as this then there's the double gear system this is a brand new edition which basically assigns two options to the shoulder buttons one gear increases Mega Man's power while the other triggers slow motion both are intuitive and simple to use this also highlights a nice addition to the game while gameplay itself avoids dialog boxes and the stages are never interrupted Capcom did build these small tutorial rooms that pop up after you obtain a robot masters power it's a great way to get a grip on the new powers before using them in a stage the main point here though is that Mega Man 11 offers excellent responsive controls that are a perfect fit for the series but just how responsive are they well I did some tests using 240 frames per second video and determined that Mega Man 11 has genuinely low input latency keep in mind that these tests are somewhat rough due to the reliance on grainy high-speed footage produced by an iPhone 10 also this was filmed on an LG c8 OLED which adds around 21 milliseconds of input latency so on Xbox 1 X 10 Megaman 11 roughly comes in around 62 milliseconds or so which is on par with the PlayStation 1 err in megaman games like x4 mice which results then are slightly higher in comparison but very close indeed coming in around 68 milliseconds ps4 pro however is closer to 90 milliseconds which is nearly 2 full frames slower than Xbox 1x I'd imagine this is due to a forced triple buffer vsync unless a game specifically utilizes an adaptive vsync mode ps4 games in general tend to use triple buffering Wow Xbox games are often double buffered with an adaptive vsync we've seen this many times with different multi-platform releases and it might help explain the extra latency here that said it still does feel responsive on ps4 but it's clear that the other consoles have an advantage keep in mind that filming at 240 FPS is not a surefire way to get an exact number these are all just rough estimates but it's clear that ps4 legs behind either way the results are excellent especially on the Xbox and switch it's significantly faster than the X Legacy Collection so at this point my feeling is that Megaman 11 features great level design and super sharp controls but what about the presentation in designing the game Capcom has opted to use its internal MT framework engine again last seen in monster hunter world but this is a very different looking game I'd imagine that this engine was selected due primarily to switch support Capcom's other major engine the re engine powering Resident Evil 7 Devil May Cry 5 and Resident Evil 2 remake doesn't currently seem to support the switch or at least it didn't when the game went into full production so empty frameworks seemed like a good choice it's also an engine that has proven itself in the past with games like Marvel vs. Capcom 3 running on a PS Vita at native resolution at 60 frames per second the selected visual style then channels the feeling of hand-drawn graphics but relies primarily on 3d models the texture work is excellent while dynamic lighting and occasionally even dynamic shadows helps spice things up further I especially loved details like the rim lighting drawn into the tree textures here in the background there's a real sense of artistry to the environments that takes the kind of shading you might have seen in a pixel art game into account in 3d it's also vibrant and well designed this isn't the first side-scrolling Mega Man game built in 3d mind you the two PSP games and earlier ps2 entries in the X series are also 3d but I feel that Megaman 11 is the most successful in pulling it off so how does it fare across multiple platforms then well the best news here is that the game is enhanced for Xbox one X and ps4 pro in each case that means a full native 4k presentation with SMA a anti-aliasing at 60 frames per second with it zoomed out perspective on the action this leads to a highly refined presentation with super sharp detail if you jump over to the base consoles then Megaman 11 still delivers a great experience hitting a full 1080p on both consoles with the same SMA implementation that means even if you're running a base Xbox one you'll get an ultra clean and sharp image and while the added clarity of 4k is certainly welcome it still looks great on these platforms the switch on the other hand is a different case in docked mood Megaman 11 is still 1080p just like the other platforms but it runs without any form of anti-aliasing at all which basically means that the game is a lot jagir than any other version especially on a larger 4k display thankfully the results on the switch screen itself are much more pleasing in portable mode Megaman 11 runs at the screens native 1280 by 720 I've always had a soft spot for portable Megaman games in the past I still have my copies of the original Game Boy games for instance and of course there's those excellent PSP games so just having a next-generation take on Megaman in the palm of my hand once again is quite a treat and it works really well on the switch then of course there's the PC version which supports a wide range of resolutions but is still very limited in the options Department the PC version is locked to sixteen by nine widescreen for instance with ultra wide resolution simply parking black bars on the left and right this however I'd imagine is due to the game design itself many areas are specifically framed for sixteen by nine and increasing the field of view would either reveal empty space or trigger enemy activations too early thereby messing up the flow of the stage aside from resolution and input latency differences however Megaman 11 looks the same across each and every platform it's really only the docked switch experience that falls a little short in my opinion with its lack of anti-aliasing but honestly every version is nicely polished in its own right so the game looks roughly the same across all versions aside from resolution but what about the framerate after all in an action game like Megaman smooth performance is a must well sort of what I mean is if you look back at the series it hasn't always hit the mark in terms of framerate the 8-bit NES games often exhibit slowdown and flicker depending on what's happening on screen due to hardware limitations it's not great but obviously that did improve over time in the newer games especially on playstation Saturn no longer exhibits such issues so how about Megaman 11 well let's start with the Xbox 1x native 4k resolution 60 frames per second and not a dropped to be found the gameplay simply does not drop frames delivering a perfect framerate at all times now I've played through most of the first eight stages here on the Xbox one X and just never ran into any issues at all it's very smooth and the same goes for the PlayStation 4 Pro where I've nearly finished the game the framerate simply does not drop here it's 100% stable 100% of the time so at this point we're 2 for 2 but can we keep the combo going well on a base PlayStation 4 it seems like we can I did put less time into this specific version mind you only playing through three of the stages or so on the base system but performance remained locked throughout all of my tests and the same is true of Xbox 1s again I didn't put as much time into this specific version but the stages I played suggest that it is on par with the other versions and switch this is the one that I was a little concerned about but after spending more time with the game well I'm happy to report that Capcom nailed it it's 100% locked at 60fps again at least in the stages that I've played on this system and the same is true of portable mode which again it's very smooth very stable which is why I saved the framerate analysis portion of the video till the very end because honestly it's not that interesting we get exactly the performance we wanted and there isn't a lot else to discuss here but that doesn't mean it's not a huge achievement while the game isn't pushing any technical boundaries necessarily you simply cannot take this kind of performance for granted I only need to bring up the Unreal Engine 3 powered mighty number 9 again to illustrate just how badly things can go wrong nearly every version of that game exhibits nasty slowdown which is why Capcom deserves credit for hitting such a stable over performance across every platform so at this point we've established that Mega Man 11 looks plays and runs like a dream but there's one more important element in building a great Mega Man title that I want to discuss briefly and that is the audio primarily the soundtrack the original Mega Man games are known the world over for the remarkably catchy news nearly every installment in the series has an awesome soundtrack a catchy soundtrack is critical in designing a side-scrolling action game like this without the music to back up the action the excitement of playing the game is reduced somewhat now initially I was slightly disappointed by the tracks here due to the instrumentation but over time it's really started to grow on me in fact certain tracks like Tundra Man are so catchy that I feel that they stand up against the best soundtracks in the series just listen [Music] it's great stuff all around one other element that's both interesting and slightly disappointing is what they call the instrumental music selecting this option in the menu triggers a different style of music that sounds more like this [Music] it's a neat alternative to the default soundtrack but there's an issue this seems to only be available if you pre-ordered the game the decision to lock this behind a pre-order is the one and only modern style concession of the developer made with this game and it's a shame that it's not just available to everyone better yet it would have been a great reward for completing the game or finishing certain challenges as for the rest of the audio well the sound effects and voices are pretty good and they do not intrude much on the experience you don't have to worry about characters buzzing in while you're trying to complete a stage it's just straight music and sound effects during the gameplay with those occasional cutscenes happening between just like the NES games all that is to say then that Megaman 11 hits all the right notes everything that I look for in a Mega Man game is accounted for here and improved upon well Mega Man 9 is a fantastic throwback style of game in its own right this is what I've wanted from the series for years now Mega Man 11 is basically Mega Man's Sonic mania moven That moment when a development team manages to fully capture the essence of the classic games while expanding them in new directions whoever wait what was that oh yeah one complaint when you go through the gates Mega Man drops like a stone rather than floating through the gates like classic games minor thing but it definitely stands out aside from that though everything else feels like a nice improvement it doesn't change it so much as to feel like a different series but it adds just enough while bringing the nostalgia in full force to make for a wonderfully memorable game there's been a lot of fantastic Games in 2018 thus far but honestly Megaman 11 might just be one of my absolute favorites of the year thus far sure a good chunk of that is going to be tied up in nostalgia I love Megaman but I've loved Megaman for 30 years now and really Capcom has let the fans down on numerous occasions so it was definitely not a given that Megaman 11 would deliver but I'm so happy that it has what that's enough gushing from me for the moment if you enjoyed this video be sure to give us a like subscribe and follow us over on Twitter and of course ring that notification bell up there and until next time keep on playing Megaman [Music]

Channel: Digital Foundry

Views: 118,816

Keywords: Mega Man 11, Megaman 11, mega man games, Rockman, Rock Man, Mighty Number 9, Mighty No 9, graphics comparison, visual comparison, head to head comparison, head to head, frame-rate, framerate, frame rate, capcom, digital foundry, mega man, mega man x

Id: ykHJrGT_riU

Length: 20min 35sec (1235 seconds)

Published: Thu Oct 11 2018

Reddit Comments

[u/Sonicx9u]

Man, what if Mighty No. 9 went full on next gen like Mega Man 11 using Unreal Engine 4 instead with no online multiplayer features stretch goals. At 4 Million, would have it work or not likely?